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Do televised showdowns factor greatly in presidential election?

By Karen E. Crummy and Chuck Murphy, The Denver Post

Updated:
09/24/2012 10:08:10 AM EDT

The rules for the first 2012 presidential debate are simple: Republican Mitt Romney should refrain from sighing, while Democratic President Barack Obama shouldn't reveal whether he asks his daughters for advice on the economy.

While politicians and pundits like to characterize presidential debates as election game-changers, years of polling data show that they have mattered only a handful of times over the past 50 years. One was in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter said he consulted 12-year-old daughter Amy on her concerns about nuclear proliferation, helping swing the race 6 points overnight. Another was in 2000 when Al Gore persistently interrupted George W. Bush, sighed and appeared agitated -- and an 8-point lead in the polls evaporated in the roll of his eyes.

Even in those instances, however, the so-called debate effect was not considered the sole determining factor in the elections. (Indeed, Gore won the popular vote over Bush.)

Political experts say that in 2012 there are too many other ingredients that go into the campaign stew: the influence of the 24/7 news cycle, early voting, ads, current events and, now, the impact of instant analysis via social media.

"The big change this year will probably be Twitter," said Alan Schroeder, a Northeastern University journalism professor and author of Presidential Debates: 50 Years of High-Risk TV. Twitter, a microblogging service, has exploded since 2008, when a total of 1.6 million tweets were sent on Election Day.

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Today, that many tweets are sent out every 6 minutes.

"It means that it won't be just the pundits and the journalists who have control over deciding which were the pivotal moments in the debate," Schroeder said. "It will be much more egalitarian now."

To be sure, the upcoming debates may provide some memorable moments such as Ronald Reagan's "Are you better off today than four years ago?";

Michael Dukakis' unemotional "No" to the question whether he'd apply the death penalty even if someone raped and killed his wife; George H.W. Bush looking at his watch; and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Lloyd Benson telling Republican opponent Dan Quayle that "you're no Jack Kennedy."

But the experts say those video bites don't necessarily change people's minds or sway the undecided. The snippets are also as likely to be generated by eventual losers as winners. Instead, what matters more than a single zinger is the overall impression a candidate offers voters -- particularly the relatively small number of truly undecided voters -- during what amounts to a nationally televised job interview.

"Even when debates don't move the poll numbers, what they do is cement or crystallize the election," said Allen Louden, a political communications expert at Wake Forest University. "They do this by reinforcing the narrative" of the candidates' campaigns and image.

When the University of Denver hosts the first debate, focused on domestic policy, on Oct. 3, Obama will have to defend his administration's economic decisions, while Romney will have to convince undecided voters he can not only do the job, but do it so much better than Obama that they should risk a change. Although Obama has a slight edge in the polls and proved himself a competent debater in 2008, his campaign is now trying to tamp down expectations.

His advisers are spinning hard, trying to inflate expectations for challenger Romney, given that he has had much more recent practice, debating other Republicans roughly 20 times during the primary campaign. Romney's campaign has publicly disclosed the candidate has engaged in intense debate preparation but, given Obama's 2008 experience, also painted him as the underdog.

Regardless, history shows that candidates prepare so much they rarely make mistakes, said John Sides, a political science professor at George Washington University. Which is critical because it is the gaffes that tend to be remembered.

"Indicators show there is more downside than upside in debates. You can usually hurt yourself more than help yourself," Sides said.

In his single debate against Reagan in 1980, Carter seemed to shift strategy 12 minutes into the debate, going from calm to aggressive before ultimately launching 21 attacks to Reagan's 16, an academic analysis showed.

The strategy failed -- as Carter began to appear the desperate challenger and Reagan proved unflappable, at one point responding calmly with "There you go again," a line he had planned and practiced for effect.

At the same time, Carter chose not to directly respond to many of Reagan's charges about his record, and Carter's lead in the polls became a landslide in the opposite direction.

Will Obama or Romney similarly falter? To varying degrees, both have before, with Obama somewhat callously describing Democratic opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton as "likable enough" during a 2008 primary debate and Romney offering a $10,000 wager to Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the GOP primary.

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